​Whistleblowers at Veteran Affairs victims of ‘retaliation’

VA managers are punishing whistleblowers in the ranks via demotions and manipulation of medical records, among other means, according to testimony delivered by the staff during a House Veterans Affairs subcommittee hearing.

Employees at the Department of Veteran Affairs testified that
their efforts to shed light on problems inside of the
administration resulted in personal acts of retaliation against
them.

Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner on Monday delivered prepared
testimony at the subcommittee hearing, revealing how VA managers
accessed the medical records of whistleblowers in an effort to
tarnish their reputations.

“In several cases, the medical records of whistleblowers have
been accessed and information in those records has apparently
been used to attempt to discredit the whistleblowers,” she
said.

“We will aggressively pursue relief for whistleblowers in
these and other cases where the facts and circumstances support
corrective action.”

One such VA employee, Brandon Coleman, a Marine Corps veteran who
works at the VA office in Phoenix, Arizona, said someone
illegally entered his medical records after he publicized the
failures of his department to adequately handle veterans with
suicidal tendencies.

He said that after his whistleblowing activities began, the
condition of his mental health was questioned by his bosses,
while there were threats to lower his disability rating.

“I feel strongly that this proposal to reduce my benefits is
nothing more than an additional retaliation against me because I
came forward as a whistleblower,” he told TheBlaze last
month.

Dr. Christian Head, who works in the Los Angeles VA, described
how he was punished after issuing complaints about internal
practices, such as the batch deletion of patient appointments.

"Moving me to a storage bin makes me feel bad, but they are
sending a message," Head said, as quoted by CNN. "They
are trying to intimidate. They are trying to suppress
[whistleblowers'] willingness to try to make a better life for
these veterans.

"It's shameful."

The issue of VA administrators punishing staff members who
attempted to draw attention to problems inside the agency go back
to at least 2010, when the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported
that a VA official believed her superiors had accessed her
medical records.

That report unearthed more than 14,000 privacy violations at the
Pittsburgh-based facility.

The Monday hearing indicated that the VA’s ‘culture of
retaliation’ against whistleblowers continues to this day.

“I reiterate today … that the department has had and
continues to have problems ensuring that whistleblower
disclosures receive prompt and effective attention, and that
whistleblowers themselves are protected from retaliation,”
Meghan Flanz, director of the VA’s Office of Accountability
Review, told the subcommittee.

The VA's Office of Accountability Review, established in 2014 to
promote leadership accountability within the department, is
currently handling 80 cases, of which 15 involve whistleblower
retaliation, the office's Director Meghan Flanz said Monday.

However, Flanz said only three senior VA managers who punished
whistleblowers have been fired.

"VA is still working toward the full culture change we must
achieve to ensure all employees feel safe disclosing
problems," Flanz told the committee.